Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday November 11, 2005 @05:54PM
from the hearsay-is-the-best-say dept.

Eurogamer had a chance to sit down with Mark Rein, president of Epic Games. He says that many of his recent comments have been taken out of context, and need a little clarification. From the article: "I actually said Nintendo's going to make amazing games. I never really passed a judgement on the controller itself. I think the controller's cool! ... I wasn't bashing Nintendo, I wasn't bashing the controller, I was really just saying that a byproduct of having a device like this is that people are going to make games that possibly are just there because of the controller, as opposed to being great games of themselves, and I said it badly... I regret that." We've previouslyreported on some of these statments.

The difference is that I don't think any console maker has actively encouraged developers to make gimmicky trash for its consoles since the Atari 2600. (Unless you count optional accessories like the Power Glove and the EyeToy, but those were never big parts of the industry.)

More likely, though, third parties just won't be making any games for the Revolution, period.

"I wasn't bashing Nintendo, I wasn't bashing the controller, I was really just saying that a byproduct of having a device like this is that people are going to make games that possibly are just there because of the controller, as opposed to being great games of themselves, and I said it badly... I regret that."

Uggg... This quote reminds me of some of the horrible gimmicks that are used the stlyus in DS games. Take Nanostray for example. They foce you to freaking change weapons using the stlyus. It's horrible and it actually makes the game worst/awkward by including the stylus feature. Now take for example Polarium where the concept of that game actually works with using the stylus. Don't force the use of the special features. Use the special features if the premise of the game actually warrant it or otherwise would not degrade gameplay.

While I'm sure that there will probably be a lot of obnoxious games for the Revolution (there are a lot of obnoxious games for EVERY console) I think that a lot of the games that he may have been referring to are not just obnoxious games, but instead the type of games that Nindendo hopes to have created to draw the casual gamers.
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the games that appeal to casual gamers are obnoxious to hard core gamers. A lot of this is that games that appeal to casual or non-gamer

I recently purchased Donkey Konga for my non-gamer wife. Low and behold, SHE LOVES IT. I personally can't play it for more than ten minutes because I find it mind numbingly dull. And yet, she'll play it for an hour straight. I think we tend to forget that non-gamers want something that's simple to use, easy to learn, and instantly fun.